"Friends of Jaclyn"

I wanted to title this one "Friends of Jaclyn, and Kim, and Frenchie, and Alex, and Emily and Merideth and Kathy, and Johnny, and Courtney, etc. Sorry if I didn't name all of you.

We have recently got involved with the "Friends of Jaclyn" program and have made friends with a whole new group of great people. This program pairs up a child with a brain tumor with a college athletic team. We were fortunate enough to get paired with the Lawrence University Girls Fastpitch Softball Team. For the last 2 months we have been meeting roughly once a week for social interaction, and friendship making events. First was a pizza party where we met the team for the first time. Emma walked into the room and commanded the attention of all 16 girls and the coaches every time she spoke. We got to know each other and an instant bond was formed.

We since have had movie night and pumpkin carving, and an Alumni game where she was adopted into the team. Complete with her own uniform she is armed for the season in spring. Until then this team I am sure will provide very special moments for our family.

We had one of those special moments last night. It all started about 3 days earlier. Emma needs to have an MRI in a week and surgery on her leg in 3 weeks. Not wanting to risk any of the family to get H1N1 prior to these events we made the decision to not let the kids go out and do their Trick or Treating. We tried to compensate by taking them out and buying them a bag of candy of their choice. This only lasted for a little while but it wasn't enough for them gain memories for a lifetime. We then thought about what cold we do in a short time frame? Our friends were sick so we couldn't have them over. The next option was to ask the team if they could help. That is all it took. Coach Kim sent out and E-Mail to the team to see who was in on the event. An overwhelming response from the team, they dropped or put off their plans to come to our house to spend some time with Emma. First we ate dinner. I forgot how much college age kids love home cooking. Emma then took over the evening. Spreading all our guests to different rooms of the house with a bowl of candy. She and her sister then trick or treated our home. It wasn't just any trick or treating, Emma made sure to ask for all the candy in each bowl because she knew nobody else needed that candy more than her. Armed with sugar the entire team started to sing High School Musical song with Emma. This is one of those moments that I don't think words or pictures can accurately describe. Picture 8 girls surrounding Emma and here sister all sining and dancing to these songs. I really thought her smile was going to wrap around her head. Not to mention the teams smiles also.

We have not only got to enjoy the Softball teams time but we went to a football game at the university also. Their football team also adopted a boy and are doing similar events with him. So we are getting to experience the entire athletic department as I feel adopted into all of it. Even though we have only been with the team for about 2 months I still think "this is the start of something new." (Gosh, I can't get the HSM songs out of my head.) After last nights party we are now calling the team the FOJ sisters rather than "The Team." I/We are looking forward to spending a lot of time with this new family of ours.